How to start a dropshipping clothing business? • AxiomQ

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February 17, 2023 Business

Dropshipping is a popular e-commerce business now. Its main difference from traditional business models is avoiding production steps and, in some cases, even delivery. This online business model allows one person (a dropshipper) with low investments to start making a profit.

The dropshipper finds the products to sell, suppliers, creates online stores and distributes customer orders among suppliers. This work’s main idea is to make a profit by selling goods at the supplier price plus commission. The dropshipper mainly uses the profit to maintain the online store and promote it; there are no production or storage expenses.

The steps to start dropshipping clothing business are the same as starting dropshipping any cheap wholesale products. In general, starting from various cheap products is recommended to understand how dropshipping works and learn how to make a profit.

Organization of dropshipping clothing business

The following list includes a detailed explanation of all starting steps one-by-one, and how they usually are executed by a beginner dropshipper. But from all rules, there are exceptions; for advanced entrepreneurs, some steps can be skipped, or the order can be changed.

Find the hot items to sell. Clothes are one of the best options for beginners for dropshipping. The choice is broad; the number of suppliers is unlimited, including cheap Chinese manufacturers. You can check items that are in trend using different tools (Google Trends, keyword analysis, social networks, bloggers). You do not need to sell clothes that are not in trend; dropshipping allows a quick switch from one model to another.

You also can check the number of clothing orders on the source markets. The most popular clothing source markets are AliExpress, Alibaba, Worldwide Brands, Wholesale Central, Modalyst, and Spocket. In addition, the Dsers app helps to find products on Aliexpress among trustable suppliers.

Determine and contact potential suppliers. Agree on the quality, delivery terms, invoices, and return/refund policy. The supplier can be a retailer, manufacturer, or importer – any company with the required goods in stock and willing to work with dropshippers. It is recommended to start with small orders to check the supplier. After you extend your business to big orders, you can ask your supplier for a discount and an invoicing schedule (every week or two) to consolidate orders and reduce paperwork.

If possible, you need to find several suppliers in different geographical locations for the same goods; this will be the opportunity to reduce delivery costs and guarantee the good’s availability in the storage. At this stage, you need to check the legal status of your supplier, how he previously executed dropshipping orders, and how he packs the goods.

Create an ecommerce store. You need to define a platform to be used for making orders. The website will drive your sales. It should be competitive, represent your brand and the clothing from the best sides, and have all required pages of the product description, payment collection, and customers’ easy-to-use interface. It would be best if you had top-quality pictures of your clothing in different colors and sizes and detailed descriptions of the materials and garment accessories.

You can organize the website on popular dropshipping platforms like Shopify and eBay (target markets). No matter where you will create a website, you need to constantly organize promotion companies for traffic attraction. For marketing, you can use standard SMM tools like SEO, social networks, guest blogging, email marketing, giveaways, etc. You should regularly analyze sales on your website and check how customers come to you and what products they are searching for, increasing your revenue.

Make your business legitimate. You need to determine the business structure (sole proprietorship, LLC, corporation), as all entrepreneurs have to pay taxes per regional laws. Also, it would help if you organized your accounting to keep your finances in order. You need to set the payment strategy for your customers: PayPal, credit cards, or Discover.

It is impossible to estimate the time required to boost a dropshipping store; it depends only on a dropshipper’s ability to find profitable niches. Therefore, points 1 and 2 are essential to make a dropshipping business work.

Further steps of clothing dropshipping business

After you organize the dropshipping business, you can start order fulfillment. After the customer places the order on your website, a dropshipper should find a relevant supplier. Depending on your payment rules, the customer can pay with the order placement or after the delivery of the goods. If one of your suppliers agrees to produce and deliver the goods, your supplier takes all further responsibility to produce and deliver quality goods. But if the customer will not be satisfied upon the good’s arrival, you should resolve the issue. As the customer has only your contacts and your company is responsible for refunds.

To eliminate all mistakes and delays in orders transferring from the website to suppliers, you can use numerous software for dropshipping automation. These apps can take care of all product price updates and check presence at stores as well. They can also create product listings with prices based on your commissions and add new items to your website. But dealing with customers to obtain positive reviews at the beginning is the dropshipper task. Further, you can find some software for that too.

Conclusion

Dropshippers are good helpers for manufacturers who want to avoid dealing with customers or wholesalers who want additional sales. With the guidance of a clothing dropshipping organization, you clearly see that it is an excellent opportunity to start your own company with minimum investments. Chinese suppliers produce a wide range of clothes of different quality, you can start with budget models, and after finding your niche, you can move to the luxury segment.

This business is legal; you need only to register it properly and pay taxes. With many automatic solutions for order fulfillment, you can focus on business expansion and website promotion. Organizing your business correctly allows you to create a flexible clothing business without storing seasonal goods. Dropshipping eliminates the most significant minus of the clothing business; you can have a range of sizes and colors without needing to store them. You can order from different suppliers, provide the most comprehensive choice for your customers, and be the most competitive online business on the market.